Hillary Clinton Writes a Chapter on Benghazi

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the World Bank in Washington May 14.

Reuters

Hillary Clinton’s Benghazi strategy is to go on offense, saying that Republicans who make the September 2012 attack a political issue “minimize the sacrifice” of those who died, according to an account from her forthcoming book.

Politico obtained chapter from Mrs. Clinton’s book, “Hard Choices.” The chapter about the attack on a U.S. facility in Libya comes out a day after Mrs. Clinton met at the White House with President Barack Obama and on the morning of a meeting of allies to discuss her response to attacks on her handling of the incident. ‘

The chapter, as relayed by Politico, denounces Republicans for making the deaths of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans stationed in Libya a political issue and defends Susan Rice who as U.N ambassador relayed the Obama administration’s talking points on Sunday shows after the incident. In the chapter, Mrs. Clinton also repeats her assertion that she never saw diplomatic cables requesting additional security at the facility.

Mrs. Clinton writes that she will not participate in any future GOP investigations of the Benghazi incident. House Republicans earlier this month formed a special committee to investigate the matter.

“I will not be a part of a political slugfest on the backs of dead Americans,” she writes, according to Politico. “It’s just plain wrong, and it’s unworthy of our great country. Those who insist on politicizing the tragedy will have to do so without me.”

And Mrs. Clinton again – as she did in an excerpt from the book’s introduction released earlier this week – writes about her frustration with established Washington political convention. This time it is to bemoan the place of Sunday morning talk shows as the proper forum for debating key issues.

Mrs. Clinton wonders why, according to Politico, people “fixate on the question of why I didn’t go on TV that morning, as if appearing on a talk show is the equivalent of jury duty, where one has to have a compelling reason to get out of it. I don’t see appearing on Sunday-morning television as any more of a responsibility than appearing on late-night TV. Only in Washington is the definition of talking to Americans confined to 9 A.M. on Sunday mornings.”

In all, there is little unexpected in Mrs. Clinton’s account. She defends herself as she has before, and again blames Republicans for politicizing the incident. But devoting a chapter to Benghazi in what amounts to a presidential campaign rollout memoir is an acknowledgement that it will not go away.

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